100 years ago
Dec. 4, 1920
• Riding a horse stolen from a negro farmer, Lewis Evans, aged 20, and Harry Boltz, aged 22, escaped from the state convict farm at Tucker, Jefferson county early yesterday morning, according to information received at the state penitentiary here. Evans was sentenced from Sebastian county to serve two years on a charge of grand larceny. He was committed to the penitentiary on June 20, 1920. Boltz was sentence in Saline county for burglary and grand larceny and was serving a three-year term. He was received at the penitentiary on March 30, 1920.
50 years ago
Dec. 4, 1970
• Mrs. Flossie Cato, 37, of Morrilton, who was fired January 19 by a Morrilton textile mill because she refused to wear a brassiere to work, has been reinstated, her attorneys said Thursday. "There is no restraint on her mode of dress except that she should be decently attired and modestly attired," Phil Stratton of Conway, one of Mrs. Cato's attorneys said. Mrs. Cato, the mother of six and a grandmother, had filed suit in federal District Court claiming that her dismissal violated provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibiting discrimination against women in employment.
25 years ago
Dec. 4, 1995
CONWAY -- Because the Great Earthquake of 1990 never occurred, people's awareness of the dangers involved with quakes has waned with time, Dan Cicirello warns. That frustrates someone whose job description is to ensure that people are ready for earthquakes. Cicirello is earthquake preparedness supervisor for the Arkansas Office of Emergency Services, headquartered in Conway. The late Iben Browning, an Albuquerque, N. M., climatologist, predicted a major earthquake for early December 1990.
10 years ago
Dec. 4, 2010
• In a unanimous vote, the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission approved regulation changes for creeks where El Dorado Chemical Co. discharges wastewater. Currently, the company discharges into small tributaries that cannot dilute the wastewater enough, so when tested, the mineral levels were often too high. In 2007, the commission voted to allow higher mineral levels in the waterways where El Dorado Chemical discharges, but the decision was later overturned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The chemical company installed new technology to improve water quality and rescinded its request to discharge nearly double the amount of minerals in its wastewater.